It is known to use elastomeric grommets to reduce the transmission of vibration, and hence vibration-induced noise, generated by a motor assembly having a motor with a shaft under load. For example, in some household refrigerator-freezers having an evaporator fan, a conventional vibration isolation grommet is employed to reduce vibration and vibration-induced noise generated by the evaporator-fan motor assembly. The evaporator fan motor assembly includes an evaporator-fan motor and a mounting bracket. Typically, the evaporator-fan motor has a motor shaft and has a motor housing with opposing first and second end bosses, and the mounting bracket has first and second segments. The motor shaft protrudes through the first end boss. A first mounting bracket segment has a first opening which receives the first end boss, and a second mounting bracket segment has a second opening which receives the second end boss.
A first vibration-isolation grommet surrounds the first end boss and has a portion which is itself surrounded by the first mounting bracket segment. Likewise, an identical second vibration-isolation grommet surrounds the second end boss and has a portion which is itself surrounded by the second mounting bracket segment. A conventional vibration-isolation grommet is a grommet which consists of a monolithic and imperforate piece of elastomeric material.
What is needed is an improved grommet, and a motor assembly containing the improved grommet, which further reduces the transmission of vibration-induced noise.